To Play God or Man
by SaberAlchemist
Summary: Edward Elric is thrown into the Harry Potter World after he saves Al from the Gate following the failed resurrection of their mother. Now he must find a way back to his brother while dealing with the troubles that follow the Boy-Who-Lived. What will Al do without his big brother to drive him? How will Ed effect Harry's destiny? FMA/HP x-over. Original Anime & 1st book.
1. Chapter I: When Angels Cry

Hey all, this is my second fic to actually be posted and hopefully this one will actually get updated regularly. Its a crossover with the fist FMA anime and the _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone _book. I got inspiration from a couple of fics on here, most notably the fairly new fic from AngelicAlchemist93 called _The Boy with the Lightning Scar_ and _Whispers in the Rain_ by Sora Livana. Still, I'm pretty sure this fic will end up being pretty original, so stay tuned.

Oh, and I don't own Harry Potter or FMA, or any characters from them. This is produced for non-comercial purposes and all that other stuff.

-START-

_Chapter I: To Make Angels Cry_

"No! Alphonse! Al! Where are you?! You can't be gone too!" yelled 11-year-old Edward Elric. His golden eyes were frantic, searching over the floor upon which an enormous and intricate array of geometric patterns and runes, in the overall shape of a circle, was drawn. There was smoke everywhere. He clutched his head, which hurt so much he was rather surprised he had not passed out. He heard only the sounds of his pained breathing as he continued to scan the scene, intent on only one thing – finding where his younger brother had gotten. Then there was a rasp and it had not come from the small blonde boy with the headache from hell.

"E… Eh… Edward…" The boy turned his head towards the sound, a hopeful gleam shining through the panic in his eyes.

"Mom… Is that you? T-then it w-worked?!" but just as he said that, he spotted the blood and heard the gargled, raspy breathing and his eyes locked onto a mangled, fleshy something. Limbs stuck out at odd angles, muscles and organs hung from bones without skin to hold them in. It was definitely not his beautiful, dearest mother.

"Aahhh! No! NO!" cried the blond boy. "It can't be for nothing, Al can't be gone for… THAT!" Ed could not think straight, stricken with grief and furious with himself. And damn-it, his head felt like someone had cut a hole in his skull, stuck their hand in and was squeezing his brain. Hard. What could he do? He had to protect his little brother, that was his duty but he had just killed him to create some kind of monster. What had gone wrong with the transmutation? They had all the right materials for a body, the circle array was perfect – he had worked it out himself so it had to be. And they had had some of their own blood for the…

"That's it. We didn't h-have e-enough for the soul. But then, how do I get Al b-back?" He cast his gaze back on the circle and he got it, he knew what he had to do. He could not really explain how he knew or how he had thought of it. After all, he could barely stay conscious from the pain in his head but it had just appeared in his mind's eye – clear as one of those sunny days in Risembool when Mom had still been alive.

He removed his shirt shakily and pulled himself onto trembling legs. He bit the tip of his thumb, drawing blood. He painted some arrays on his chest, his forearms and his head. He stepped into the circle he had used only moments before to try to resurrect his dead mother and that had taken his little brother instead. He placed his hands to the array on his chest. Suddenly his mind was clear and his body no longer shook. He just knew this would work.

"Hey, whatever you are up there. Bring Al back! Take me, all of me – mind, body and soul – instead. Just, please, let Al be alive again!"

There was light. Blue and white tendrils of electricity and a swirl of wind filled the room. Ed saw white, then giant stone doors, then black and then his head hurt again, only it was even worse – there were images now, so many Ed could not sort them out. His vision was a kaleidoscope of scenes, of human actions, statements and knowledge. Then he hit something hard, like the ground and all was black.

xXx

Lieutenant Colonel Roy Mustang ran a hand through his medium-cropped black hair, a habit of his when nervous or anxious. His onyx eyes took in the scene before him and, despite the hard-heartedness he had had to develop to stay sane while fighting in the Eastern Rebellion, his chest ached. He knew what that transmutation circle had to be. He saw the mangled whatever it was undulating and gargling in the corner in a pool of blood. And there, in the center of the circle was an unconscious kid, no older than 10, with short, dirty-blond hair.

"God and he's still breathing, and there aren't any marks or bruises and no blood on him... How? No way someone should have survived a human transmutation like this without a…"

The smoke in the basement workroom had cleared up a little while the officer had been thinking out loud, so that he was able to get a better look at the ground by the circle. There were two sets of small handprints and indentations made by four small shins pressed against the ground in front of the circle.

"So you weren't alone, huh kid? It took whoever helped you. Well nothing I can do now but get you some medical attention and, well, make sure the MPs don't come and haul you off to some state alchemy lab for questioning." Mustang pulled his other hand out of his pocket. He had a glove on, with an elaborate circle array stitched into it in scarlet thread. He snapped his fingers, orange electricity sparked from the gloved hand in the direction of the thing in the corner, which suddenly burst into flames. Mustang watched it smolder for several minutes until it was reduced into ash. He walked over to the kid in the circle and picked him up bridal style.

"Come-on kid, let's get you looked at," said Mustang as he headed up the stairs and out of the cellar. Reaching the surface outside, he heard the rain clearly again but was dry. His aid, 1st Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, had an umbrella open over the threshold in front of the cellar doors. She looked at the kid.

"So, what happened in there? Is that kid hurt?" she said, a slight note of concern slipping into her usually cold, emotionless voice. Roy breathed heavily.

"I don't think so but based on what I saw there's probably another kid, maybe this one's sibling, who's probably dead." Lt. Hawkeye's eyes widened slightly but only momentarily.

"Well, that house over there has a sign for automail supply and repair," said the blonde woman, who was using her free hand to point at a large yellow farmhouse on a hill. "Usually, automail mechanics have some basic medical training, so we can get the kid some attention over there."

"Good observation Lieutenant," said Roy matter-of-factly. "Let's get going."

The two set off towards the yellow house at a slow walk, so as not to jostle the kid in case he had wounds they could not see. Lt. Hawkeye glanced at Lt. Col. Mustang.

"Sir, you never said what went on in there…"

"I'm not sure of the details but in general terms this kid and another seem to have attempted human transmutation." A barely perceptible look of unease drifted onto Hawkeye's face.

"And it failed…"

"Of course it failed, no one has ever done it successfully and I doubt two kids would be the first. Actually, this kid and the other must have been some real geniuses to even get as far as they did. They actually got a, well a thing in there."

"Forgive me sir, but well, isn't human transmutation illegal?"

"It's very illegal, it's the ultimate taboo in alchemy. But if I'm right, I doubt this kid will need anymore punishment than he's gotten, if you get my drift," said the Lieutenant Colonel, a grave look on his face. The 1st Lieutenant nodded curtly, all business again.

"Yes sir, whatever happened in that cellar, there wasn't enough evidence to tell, is what you're saying."

"Precisely, Lieutenant Hawkeye." Said Mustang, a slight, sad smile creeping onto his face. As they trudged the rest of the way to the automail mechanics' house, Mustang noticed that the rain, while quite heavy, was not falling in sheets or an undefined spray; instead the drops were all quite distinct, a million little "plops" resounding in the night. If Mustang had been a religious man, instead of the alchemist and scientist he was, he supposed he might have thought the angels were crying over this boy's fate.

-END-

So that's the first chapter, the next one will actually have some Harry Potter stuff in it. FYI, the fic will mostly follow Ed, Harry and Al but will probably have a couple of other character pov's in it from time-to-time. And in case you can't tell, I'm going to be deviating from the original anime canon a lot, so if you don't like that well, don't say I didn't warn you. I've got the plot fairly well thought out so updates should be reasonably frequent.


	2. Chapter II: Fire in the Eyes

First and foremost I would like to thank everyone who fav'd, followed, read and reviewed this story. I did not expect this to garner so much attention and it makes the fact that I obviously failed to update "reasonably frequently" kind of shaming. Anyways, my failure was not for lack of trying – the second chapter proved to be very difficult for me to write, so much so that I've just decided to split it and post the first part, which I'm happy with, and leave the second part as the third chapter, to be posted a little later while I agonize over the last bits (incidentally, that's why there aren't HP characters in this chapter, they're in the next one that was originally part of this one).

I'll respond briefly to some points raised in reviews.

Guest: Mustang and Hawkeye did not just leave Alphonse; they're taking him to the Rockbell home for medical attention.

ReginaDC21: Oh, I've got plans for Mustang and Co. although it'll take awhile for that to really be apparent, as not much will happen in Amestris for a while (like Chapter VI or VII).

Deadly Sin of Mine: Ed's intro to the wizard world will be done in a way that is hopefully somewhat original. Just to tantalize a bit, Dumbledore will be the first wizard Ed meets and no, he won't be intolerably annoying. I do worry it might be slightly OOC for Ed but I think it works. You'll just have to see in the next chapter.

-START-

_Chapter II: Fire in the Eyes_

Red – he was seeing red – but it was not alarming like the blood that had covered that thing in his basement, rather it was pleasing. He recognized the color as that of sunlight filtering through closed eyelids, so familiar from all the times he had rested on a sunbathed hill in Risembool after a day of roughhousing with Al, Winry and Den, Winry's dog. Damn, he missed those carefree days and wondered if he would ever know anything like them again.

"After all, I'm in some whole other world now, right?" he muttered to himself. Ed knew this; it was knowledge that had implanted itself in his head when he had entered those big stone doors after the transmutation to bring his brother back. Whether he could trust the big stone doors was the question, although for now he did not have much choice. "Still, I don't know where I am _exactly_, which is just fucking peachy…"

He thought about how sad his brother must be with him gone. Whimpering slightly, he realized something horrible.

"I w-wonder if he thinks that I d-died and he survived just to make th-that… th-thing…" he said in barely a whisper. "I can't imagine h-how much t-that'd make h-him c-cry."

As Ed broke into sobs; his thoughts raced from there to Winry crying like she had when she had learned her parents had died while treating the wounded during the Eastern Rebellion. Then Ed thought about how angry Granny Pinako probably was, which made him think of the time he had tracked mud all over the Rockbell house after getting into a fight with one of the boys from school down by the river. This memory got Ed thinking about how lonely the Elric house would be for Al now that he was all alone. And that finally got Ed out of his funk – he was not going to leave Al alone, if he allowed that he did not deserve the title big brother.

"Wow, my head's all over the place isn't it? Can't focus on anything, damn-it," he said, wrenching his eyes open and rubbing away tears with the back of a hand. The sun was out in force but the air was chilled. Freezing winds howled slightly, giving him goose bumps. He noted that he was still missing his shirt and the blood arrays on his body had been smudged beyond recognition, probably from him rolling around on the ground in his sleep. He heard mechanical noises, the sound of many feet striding across pavement and the rumbling of many voices. It sounded kind of like that one time he, Al and Winry had gone to East City with Pinako when she had to pick-up some supplies for her automail business – but louder and busier. He clutched at his head.

"So I'm in some big city – that'll do wonders for my headache. No point just sitting here any longer. Maybe if I do something my thoughts will stop racing all over."

Ed abruptly sat upright from his horizontal position.

"Whoa, I haven't been covered in this much dirt since that month on Yock Island was over."

Shivering, Ed looked around to see if there was anything to cover up with. He was in a side alley, filled with litter, old cigarette butts and bins for trash and recycling. More precisely, Ed was behind one of the large metal trash bins, which shielded him from the view of people walking down the main street. By standing on tiptoes and giving a great heave, Ed was able to get the hinged plastic lid of the bin up. Fortuitously, there were large bags of scrap fabric piled inside along with folded up cardboard boxes.

"Must be outback of a tailor or something," muttered Ed, who proceeded to pull himself up onto the edge of the bin and then take one of the big clear bags out and dump it down below him. When he got down he ripped the bag open and pulled out whatever caught his fancy.

"Let's see, I want red and black so this and this and this… OK, that looks like enough for a shirt and coat, so let's make the circle." With a thin metal pipe that had been propped against the alley wall, Ed scraped the outline of a perfect circle into the pavement. He added a square inside, drew an "X" within the square and further inside the newly minted triangular sections inside the square added rune symbols for wool, cotton and other fabrics.

"OK, first the shirt."

He placed the black material carefully inside the circle to ensure he did not disturb his intricate array. He placed his hands over the circle and concentrated. He felt the natural flow of energy around him and inside of him; pictured the materials he was working with, mentally figuring the different fabrics and subtle chemical variations in the different dyes; and then he concentrated on what they would become, a comfy black fleece pullover shirt. In so doing, his mind cleared quite a bit, his focus returning as the feeling of the energy filled him. But the energy would not quite come together – something was off.

"What the… OK, just concentrate harder, Ed, this is an easy transmutation, you could do this when you were six."

And he did concentrate harder; he decided to push more of his own energy into the reaction as well, instead of relying on just that gathered from around. After about a minute of standing around, looking for all the world like what he would have termed a constipated idiot, there was finally a familiar buzz in his ears and a warmth somewhere deep inside. A brief flash of blue electricity and a burst of centrifugal breeze later and there in the center of the circle was his desired shirt.

"Damn-it! That was so much harder than normal, why is that?! My headache's worse too!"

He pulled the shirt on as he grumbled to himself, his mind racing again. As quickly as he could given his newfound difficulties with basic alchemy, he repeated his steps but this time made a red cloth jacket with a large black Flamel Cross, the symbol of his alchemy teacher Izumi Curtis, across the back.

"There, that's much better," he said, satisfied with his work despite his labors. He began to trek towards the street, intent on finding a newspaper or something that could tell him where he was. "But wow, I'm feeling kinda woozy…"

Suddenly, he broke into a cold sweat and a strange dizziness, as if his internal center were spinning, took over. He stumbled then slipped. Pain in his head was joined by pain all over and a squeezing sensation in his gut. He heaved into the ground, for there was not much in his stomach, and lay there for several minutes. The whole time people walked by the front of the alley and despite him being quite visible to them now, they ignored him.

He knew this because his eyes, much like his mind were now racing about. For some reason, he was compulsively calculating the molecular and chemical structure of the people, of their clothes, of anything his eyes landed on. Truly, it was frustrating for he could not control it – he just darted his eyes and analyzed, holding his gaze on nothing for more than a few seconds.

"Damn, I'm not gonna get back to Al if I can't even walk a few feet and keep myself from alchemy spazzing or whatever the fuck this is," he muttered, and using way more willpower than should have been necessary he managed to haul himself to his feet, focusing his thoughts on walking.

He finally got out onto the street and through the haze of compulsive alchemic analysis noted that this new place was way, way bigger than East City. The buildings were all hundreds of feet high and the sidewalks were packed with rushing people, shoppers by the looks of it. Swanky shops lined the street and everybody looked to be quite well dressed – an amazing site for a humble country boy like himself. He spotted a stand filled with newspapers and some shiny booklets with pictures of some very pretty and very badly covered women on them. He blushed slightly but staggered closer to the stand to see if any of the newspapers said what city this was. Sure enough, the most prominently displayed paper had a label over a rack reading _The Times of London_.

"Well, so I'm in a big ass city called London, I guess. And… Whoa, look at the date – 1991! Guess time's different in this world. And wait, how do I know the language because I know that's not Amestrian…"

He thought hard for a minute. He was fairly certain that passing through that gate thing and coming to this other world had been the price for transmuting Al. If that were the case though, and he was paying a price, why did he now have knowledge of the language? To him, that seemed like a gift that eased his hardship. Maybe he did not know Amestrian anymore? He tried to think in Amestrian, to picture words in the language and sure enough, they came into his mind's eye. So that was not the answer but then, he had no idea why he would know the language for he had not paid any price. Clearly, he did not, in fact, know the entirety of his situation but thinking things over in detail was for later, for now he needed to keep moving, maybe find a place to stay.

Finding a place to stay would definitely be a challenge since Ed did not have any money and had no idea about the laws concerning the production of gold using alchemy in this strange place called London. So he started walking down the street again, still a little dizzy and still darting his eyes all over, having to use peripheral vision to keep on a roughly strait path. Needless to say, he bumped into quite a few people, who tended to give him dirty looks.

Finally, someone responded differently. He bumped into a very tall man dressed in a dark blue uniform with a tall, rounded cap on, who Ed assumed must be a police officer. The officer grabbed his shoulder before he could get any further and turned Ed around to look at him.

"Hey there little bloke, you lost there? Where are yer parents?"

"I'm not little, damn-it!" said Ed, flailing his arms about as he did.

"Hey there, calm down there, just want ter know if yer OK there. Now why dun ye answer my questions like the big boy ye are, eh?" Ed was a little annoyed at the obviously condescending tone of the cop but he felt he had at least got his point across regarding his height. So he stopped his thrashing and let his arms and head hang down loosely.

"Don't have any parents and well, yeah, I guess I'm lost too."

"No parents, huh? Have ye a place ter stay then?"

"No." The officer looked at him with sad eyes but then brightened up for some reason, smiling slightly.

"Well, yer in luck then. My sister works at a place that I think ye'll be able ter stay at. It's not much mind ye, not the nicest place I mean, but its OK and way better than the streets."

Ed could not suppress a slight upturn of his mouth. Problem number one looked like it was going to resolve itself, so that he could move quickly onto figuring and research. Truly, there was no telling what he would have to do to cross back to Amestris. Whatever it took to get home, though, he would do – he was not going to leave his little brother alone – he would not have a repeat of what happened to Mom. He thought that he should offer the man a genuine smile, but decided against it. Ed was in too serious a mood to smile and besides, he was not going to make friends and form attachments to a place he was going to be leaving as soon as he could. Instead, Ed looked the officer directly in the eyes, gaze hard and nodded.

The cop stepped back slightly at Ed's odd reaction but recovered quickly.

"Well' I'll be, ye've got quite the eyes ye know. And I dun just mean the color there, ye've got a fire in ye kid." At this, Ed just shrugged.

"I've been through a lot and it, it's taken a lot to keep moving forwards."

"I suppose it would. I reckon ye'd need a lot of fire in ye ter keep goin' while out on the street and all. Yer a tough one, ye are. What's yer name anyways?"

"Edward Elric."

"Tommy Jenkins. Now ye go wait over by the newsstand fer twenty minutes or so, my shift isn' done fer a little bit. And then we'll get ye a place ter stay."

-END-

OK, so there is Chapter II, the next one should be up in a week at the most. My aim is for two, hopefully three updates in March, although I make no promises. I actually have several more chapters partially written but there is a big difference between "partially written" and "written;" so don't spam me or something.

And in case it wasn't obvious, I made-up the array Ed uses in this chapter off the top of my head.

Anyways, please read and review. Reviews are particularly appreciated.


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